A woman in our church has Leukemia and a few weeks ago there was a fundraiser to help. Our women's Bible study, of which she was part, put together a kitchen themed basket for the silent auction and my contribution was a recipe album. I wanted to make something different than I'd done before, and the papers reminded me of vintage aprons for some reason, so I went with large circles for the text. I really like how it turned out! My biggest challenge was trying to figure out what to do with the front of the album, and I finally settled on this. I still think it is a little lacking, but it works with the rest of the album. I used my Purple Onion Designs cutlery set for the window. Here's a look at the whole album...

Perhaps one of my favorite features is the tabs across the top... I just thought those were fun, printed on matching paper.

I am thinking of adding these as a custom item in my (empty!) etsy shop. My mom made me a recipe book of all the recipes she made for us when we were growing up and I love it. I love having all my childhood favorites in one place, easy to use. And I use that book more than I use any of my other cook books. I love it. So I was thinking that it might be fun to offer these albums in my shop, complete with the buyer's recipes. What do you think? Good idea? Bad idea? What should such a thing be sold for? I'd love any and all feedback... Thanks!

Saturday, June 28, 2008

I've been enjoying the flowers in my garden more this year than the past few, and I think it's because my garden is finally established. We've spent the last few years working on it, and added some things at the end of the season last year that I forgot about until they bloomed beautifully this year! There are still some things I'm planning on changing in the garden (like the vetch that thinks it's time to take center stage and the strawberries that are threatening my bitterroot) but in general I like where things are. Here are some of my pretties right now...

small poppy

oriental poppy

lupine

bitterroot, our state flower, and the one I will have to rescue from the strawberries. I fear the strawberries will need their own bed or be relegated to pots next year.

As for the clarification.... despite my recent dearth of bloggage and my announcement that the MIM Challenges will be ceasing, my blog is and will remain very much alive and active, so no worries! I'm not going anywhere, just won't be posting new challenges every Tuesday!

So I'll see you back here soon. I should have some new projects to post at some point. They're done, I just have to take pictures. Hope your weekend is going well!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Okay, so I'm trying to pare down some of my commitments these days. I don't have many big ones, but I have lots of small ones that have been overwhelming me as of late. So.... I'm going to stop doing MIM challenges. Really, they've been fun, but it's been more of a headache trying to come up with ideas and then actually get a project done for it each week that I'm not sure it's worth it. Crafting is supposed to be fun and therapeutic, right? Not stressful and overwhelming? So it's time to say goodbye to the weekly challenges.

BUT....

You can't go out without a bang, so here's the deal. You all have one week to participate in any and all of the previous challenges and I'll put all the names in a hat and draw a winner for some blog candy! I'll have to take a picture of it and post that later, but it's some fun stuff I've been saving up for a good giveaway. So thank you to everyone who has participated in the challenges this year, and I hope you keep sharing your work with me... I love it! As for the blog candy, you know the drill... make a project, leave a comment including a link and your email address, and do it all by Monday night. I'll draw a name Tuesday morning. The more challenges you participate in, the more entries you get. Good luck!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Since my craft room has been clean for a week or so now, I have been very happily playing in it, working through a Sweet Pea Scraps kit or two as I go. Believe it or not, I've even been cleaning up after myself after every crafting session so I have a clean desk when I go down to work on the next thing! It's fairly amazing...

I've definitely spent more time crafting than photographing my projects, but here's a little something I put together this week. It's simple, but it says what it needs to in order to convey how I feel these days. This is the life, and life is good.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Okay. I normally do not copy a layout exactly when I scraplift something. But this layout by the beautifully talented Jana Eubank was too perfect not to! Journaling around the edge reads:

It has been my dream since I got married to be a homemaker. I wanted to spend my days playing with my kids, training them, raising them, and baking cookies with them. I wanted to maintain a beautiful, orderly home, making nutritious, delicious dinners, and spend evenings together with my family. That is my dream.

Now, I can't speak for the beautiful orderliness of my home (though I try) or the nutritious, delicious dinners (though I try), but I'm very happy to be a homemaker and through the ups and downs of daily life it is still my dream and a job I love.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

A couple weekends ago we had a weekend retreat for the DT members at Keepsakes. I got several pages and a recipe album mostly done, but here's one I got completely done...

Again, using a Sweet Pea Scraps kit (May, I think). I love these kits! Really... they're the first thing I go for when I want to scrap something. I don't know what I'm going to do when I finally get caught up and exhaust my backlog of these wonderful kits! Guess I should just be thankful I'm so far behind on my scrapping, huh? =D

Friday, June 13, 2008

I went through my layouts this week and pulled out the ones I hadn't yet photographed and uploaded to 2ps. And now I find myself uploading them all to 2ps at 1:00 in the morning, so I thought I'd share some of what I've done in the past few months...

I don't know why, but I love the simplicity of this one. I think I really like that all of the color on the layout comes from the Fall leaves in the photos. And in general I just love these photos from an impromptu photo shoot at the park over Leif's lunch break one day. Not bad for pictures we took ourselves using a tripod, eh?

These are Ellie's little friends all dressed up for Halloween. I did another page of her all dressed up, but her friends were so cute, too, that I couldn't just leave them out! I used a sketch from the Cherish book for this one.

And this photo just cracks me up! I love it! Eliana is such a character and I love how her personality comes through in our photos of her.

And here's a layout I didn't start out liking, but by the time I was finished I really liked it. All of these layouts were done with various Sweet Pea Scraps kits over a few months, as I found time to scrap at craft nights and Friday morning crops at the LSS.

Mind you, I HAVE gotten to play in the past few days (in my CLEAN craft room!!!! Yes, that means it is actually, finally clean! Pictures to come...) and I will have pictures of those layouts (including the three I got done today!) coming soon.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

I've actually been getting some scrappy time lately, so just for kicks I thought I'd pop over and play in a little Scrapdragons challenge. This week's challenge was to scraplift one of the previous DT layouts. So I chose this one by Jennifer from challenge 17:

And this is what I came up with after lifting her layout:

When I saw her layout I thought of this picture, because it has a 12 inch width and I knew it would span across a page. So I went digging through my paper stash and grabbed this polka dot sheet and washed it with some gold ink to give it the same color washed l ook as Jennifer's page. From there I wanted to make scallops across the top of the page like she had done, but decided I really wanted to use gold ribbon, so I punched holes and threaded the ribbon through to make ruffly bunches instead. It looks a lot better in person than in this picture. Just trust me on that! I cut out flower stems from gold paper and hand stitched details on them, then added the flowers with button centers and ran the lace across the bottom of the photo. I love this lace! I'm almost to the end of it and I'll be so sad when it's gone! But I keep using it because it's beautiful!

The title I cut with my Cricut and Jasmine cartridge, and then I felt like the bottom of the page was a little naked, so I machine stitched some swirls, then inked them and added glitter glue to make them sparkle. Then I decided to add a smidgen of journaling, using a bracketed piece of chipboard reminiscent of the journaling label Jennifer used in her layout. Once I had the journaling I added some Prima crystal swirls and a couple flowers with button centers and voila! it's done! Here's a closeup of the journaling grouping:

I have to say... I'm really enjoying getting the time to play again! I've missed it terribly so.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

What can you do with a single sheet of patterned paper? That's your challenge for this week. Almost a year ago I discovered the scrap strip papers from Scenic Route and fell in love with them when I learned I could make 12 cards with a single sheet of paper (plus cardstock and some embellies). I've since done that with several kinds of paper and loved it every time! I love stretching my paper to make the most of it!

I decided to try the same idea with a layout. I started with this:And came up with this:

It was so fun! The limbs were die cut and I cut the title with my Cricut (and a new cartridge!) but everything else is from that sheet of Sassafras Lass paper! And though you can't really tell from the less-than-stellar photo, this is a fairly dimensional page, with all of the flowers and most of the birds up on pop dots. My favorite, though, is this little bird by the title:

Because this little bird is actually mounted on a spring so he bobbles a bit! He lays flat in the book, but when you turn the page he springs to life! Ha ha!

So there you have it... a challenge for the week! Get a sheet of paper and show me what you can do with it! Don't forget to leave a link in the comments so I can see what you did and enter your name in the upcoming drawing!! (Oh wait... did I just let that slip?)

Well, it's missing the journaling, but here is my submission for last week's variation on a sketch. I actually like this sketch and think I'll do some more things with it. It's fun! If you made something with either sketch, don't forget to post a link so I can see it!

Thursday, June 05, 2008

I had a full class last night and most of the attendees I'd never met before! It was so wonderful to meet new people and have new faces in class along with the regular attendees. Here are the cards we made using Tres Jolie papers, Heidi Swapp ghost butterflies, and paper ribbon from Little Black Dress Designs. The paper ribbon is really cool and was a lot of fun to play with!

A week ago I got to go to Susan Beth's house for an afternoon of scrapping. I got a few things done and started a couple more. One I'm hoping to submit for publication, but here are two of the layouts I did that I can share...

This picture is from back when Eliana was just 3 months old! We were at my parents' house and I was off doing something. When I came back into the room, this is what I saw... My mom and daughter asleep! It must have been nap time!

And this layout I just love. I wish I could take more credit for it! I got the layout idea from one I saw in a magazine of Susan Beth's and I used it as a sketch. I love the circles! I didn't have too many pictures of Lily to choose from, so this ended up being a good fit for the pictures I did have!

I do have some other layouts I've done, mostly ones I did at the overnight crop at Tamara's house. I haven't photographed them yet, but once I do I'll get them up here! In the meantime, I'm about to submit that layout and then make sure I've got everything ready for my class tonight. Maybe then I'll have a little time to clean up some more down here! The sooner I get another table cleared off the sooner I can post more pictures of my craft room, right?

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

But I didn't forget, and I do have a Variations on a Sketch for you this week! This time I'm going to do something a little different from other months and I'm going to give you a couple sketches to choose from - from someone else! Lately I've been reading Donna Downey's A Photos-First Approach to Designing Layouts and I've become enthralled with her sketches! So I did a little digging online and found that she posted two sketches to pencillines.com so I'm challenging you this week to make something using her sketches! Here they are! I can't wait to see what you come up with... play a bit and make a layout, mini album, or card, then leave me a link showing me what you put together!

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Okay, this used to be my favorite game! So when Sandy put this up on her blog I had to play along...

SCATTERGORIES...it's harder than it looks! Erase my answers, enter yours, and send it on to 10 people including the one that sent this to you. Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following. They have to be real places, names, things. Nothing made up! Use different answers if the person in front of you had the same first initial. You cannot use your name for the boy/girl name question.

WHAT IS YOUR NAME? Elizabeth

FOUR LETTER WORD: Epic

VEHICLE: Escape

TV SHOW: Everybody Loves Raymond

GIRL'S NAME: Emily

BOY'S NAME: Edward

CITY: Eden

OCCUPATION: Engineer

SOMETHING YOU WEAR: Earrings

FOOD: Eggplant

SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM: Eyeliner

REASON FOR BEING LATE: Emergency

SOMETHING YOU SHOUT: "Eureka!"

If you play along, leave me a post so I can come see what you came up with!